Tuesday 30 July 2013

À bout de souffle


deller's stone henge deflated




 STONEHENGE. This place contains in it, within the circumference of three Hun|dred foot, a rude and indigested Mass of vast large Stones, rough, and of a grey colour, 25 Foot in length, 10 in breadth, and 8 in thickness; they look as if they were hewen square, and are joined two and two toge|ther, and every couple hath a third Stone lying a-cross, which is fastened by Tennants that enter into Mortesses, not closed with a|ny Morter. It appears as if they had been set in three Ranks going round, as Circles, one within another, whereof the uttermost and largest is in compass about 300 Foot, but the other Ranks are decayed, and some of them being faln down to the ground, 'tis very dif|ficult to reckon how many there are; like|wise it seems very strange, how such im|mense Bulks should happen here, where there is no Stones of any small demension within the Neighbourhood: Whereupon some are of an Opinion, That they are not purely na|tural, or had their growth in this place. 'Tis now generally credited and believed, that they were a Monument set up by Au|relius Ambrose, in Remembrance of the Brit|tains that were Slain and Buried there, in the Reign of Vortiger, at a Banquet and Com|munication of Hengist, which the Saxons and

Brittish Chronicles testifie, That whereas the Saxons about the Year of our Lord 450. had slain Four hundred and eighty of the Brittish Nobili|ty by Treachery, under a Colour of a Parley and Treaty; this Aurelius Ambrose being then King of the Brittains, desirous to continue their Memo|ry, as well as the Infamy of his base and treache|rous Enemies, caused these Stones to be set up in the very place of their Death and Burial, the which Stones had been first brought out of Africk into Ireland, and there placed on Mount Killare, and from thence, by the Art and Magick of Mer|lina, a renowned Magician in that Age, were at length conveyed to this place upon this very Occa|sion. Others think, that the Brittains did E|rect this, as a Monument for Ambrosius him|self, to perpetuate his glorious Name to Po|sterity, who died afterwards upon this place by the Sword, in the Answer of their Quar|rel, and Vindication of their Liberties; how|ever certain it is, that there are thereabouts certain little Hills, or Banks, under which there are sometimes found Bones of tall, gi|gantick Men, and pieces of Armour; and not far from hence, remains still some of the Ruins of an old kind of Fortress, which the Romans, as it is probable, did raise for them|selves, during their Possession of these our Territories, &c.

Brome, James, d. 1719.
Title: An historical account of Mr. Rogers's three years travels over England and Wales giving a true and exact description of all the chiefest cities, towns and corporations in England, Dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick upon Twede : together with the antiquities, and places of admiration, cathedrals, churches of note in any city, town or place in each county, the gentleman above-mentioned having made it his whole business (during the aforesaid time) to compleat the same in his travelling, : to which is annexed a new map of England and Wales, with the adjacent parts, containing all the cities and market towns bound in just before the title.
Date: 1694  


Friday 26 July 2013

just what is it...



...a convincing vision of the future that lay ahead - the muscleman husband and his stripper wife in their suburban home, the consumer goods, such as the tin of ham, regarded as ornaments in their own right ... we are what we sell and buy.

ballard / miracles of life / this is tomorrow 1956

war machine and christy mack


links

A Psychopathic Hymn:

J.G. Ballard's 'Crashed Cars' Exhibition of 1970

Passings – J. G. Ballard: Philosopher of the Future Present

Jim Haynes / Arts Lab


Re: They're four hundred feet high
Posted by: "stwrtmckenzie"
Date: Sun Jul 30, 2006

Not one of the people, the person.  I put it together with people from the Human Family, an English version of the Living Theater, working out of the Arts Laboratory under the exuberant patronage of Nigel Samuel, and students from one of the London theater colleges who provided actors and early multi-media technicians. We put on a demo at the ICA and Ballard came to see it, he loved it and invited me to join him in a video about the sexuality of car crashes which, I confess, sounded unappealing.  It was performed at the ICA for about a week with the title "The Assassination Weapon, A Transmedia Search for Reality" some time in 1968 or 1969.  It was performed a couple of times after that at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Architecture and The Architectural Association.  The show took Ballard's text from The Assassination Weapon with early analog electronic distortion and music, and played this back in surround streo around a vertical circular screen, about ten feet in diameter, which revolved slowly at the center of circles of concentric seats separated by four access corridors at the four cardinal points.  The fire marshal required that the seats be fixed and I spent four days stapling chairs to a perfect hardwood floor, to the horror of my ICA minder.  Once the audience was seated, the recording of The Assassination Weapon was played back and four projection tables shooting down the access corridors combined images on the revolving screen which could take front and back projection.  I asked Jack Henry Moore, then the director of the Human Family, for a recommendation for the material for this screen, he recommended bed linen soaked in Parrafin (a flamable liquid), he said it took back projection beautifully.  I decided that, after the trouble with the chairs, I would not go to the mat with the fire marshal on this one, it was a white plastic.  The projection tables had a variety of image and light emitting parephanalia, still and movie projectors, boiling liquids (this was the sixties), rotating color filters. strobes, smoke machines, etc.  There was an image script but some room for improvisation to exploit happy coincidences on the screen which could become quite complex since, in addition to the front and back projection, the sides of screen segments (it was made up of six pizza slices bolted together) caught projections as the screen rotated, introducing lines of color and fragments of images into the main projection.  The English humor magazine "Punch" found it "Puzzling", the English manners magazine "The Lady" found it "Trying".  We played to full houses at every performance.  London was fun back then.
 

Roman coin soup

Radio belly! Cat shovel!

 

Radiant brains! Apple deaf!

Saturday 20 July 2013

DEUCE // Deus ex machine

digital electrical universal computing engine

http://deucecomputer.com/



 
http://users.tpg.com.au/eedeuce/

A Cyberneticist is a man who observes what might have happened but did not

Some say that a first requirement is that it shall weigh 45 ounces.

http://www.rossashby.info/

homeostasis ////With regard to any given life system an organism may be a conformer or a regulator.

Thursday 18 July 2013

All you need is love

Written specifically (by most accounts) for the international television broadcast Our World, shown in 17 countries around the world on July 25, 1967. The idea was to create the world's first international live broadcast using then-new satllite technology. The group were approached to write and perform a new song for the live telecast; in two weeks, John Lennon came up with this song, supposedly constructed around a word every language understood: love.

Tuesday 9 July 2013

feed the guns


Trafalgar Square, October 1918 : War Savings Campaign: 'Feed the Guns'

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/23497
A ruined farmhouse was built on the fountain, the Gordon statue was hidden by a crumbling church tower, next to it were two military lookouts camouflaged as tree trunks, and trenches built of sandbags surrounded the whole village.

The devices of the theatre were frequently invoked at home to stimulate civilian morale and publicise the War Loan


a spectacular ruined village erected in Trafalgar Square helping to draw in £29 million from Londoners in just 8 days in October 1918